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Originally Posted by u-Bob
1. Right now, nowhere in this world do we have a so called capitalist system. The system that is in place in most of the world is a corporatist system.
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No doubt. I've purposely labelled capitalism in the same mistaken way you did communism.
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2. People own their own body and the fruits of their labour (read: John Locke, Hans Herman Hoppe and Frank van Dun). Because people own the fruits of their own labour they are free to use it any way they want as long as they don't cause damage to another human being or his property. So people are free to produce products and sell them, people are free to deliver services in exchange for something else,... People are free to work for an employer if they want. They are free to agree to perform certain duties during certain hours for a certain wage.
If a worker produces something in a factory while being employed by the owner of the factory, the worker does not own the product he just produced. The worker voluntarily agreed to work there in exchange for a certain salary. (he agreed to sell his labour for a certain price).
One thing people like Marx, Chomsky, Kropotkin,... fail to realize is that labour is not the only factor of production that determines the value of a product. Fact is that raw materials are rare, that skilled labour is rare, that there exist is such a thing as risk, that there exist such a thing as time, that people aren't psychic and can't predict how many people will want a certain product at a certain moment in time and can't predict how badly they'll want the product at that moment in time,... (I recommend reading Mises, Hayek and Rothbard)
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People are not free to pursue work in the way you describe. People are but wage-slaves in this system; bound by debt in a economy that has more unemployed than jobs, most people can not simply up and leave a position they hold.
Commondities are priced by the market, a capitalist cannot change that fact. When one wishes to profit, labour is the only thing left the squeeze.
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3. Torcetrapib, Torcetrapib, Torcetrapib. In the early 1990's Pfizer started developing a new drug for people with high cholesterol; Torcetrapib. They worked on the product for about 16 years. In 2006, they suspended their clinical trials due to possible heart risks and they cancelled the project. The drug was never on the market. Pfizer didn't make a penny, while they had invested I think around 800mil USD.
Even though, Pfizer didn't make a penny, all people working on the project (lab technicians, doctors, secretaries, cleaning ladies, managers,...) all got paid at the end of the month for the duration of the product (or at least the time they were employed there).
Now, let's say we'd have a communist system where all people working on the project get an equal share of the profits. If Pfizer said: "We are looking for people to work on our new project. We want to develop a new drug, but we don't know how long it will take. It could be 2 years, it could be 10 years, it could be 16 years,... It is even possible we won't be able to sell it. But if we come up with something and are able to sell it, everyone will get an equal share of the profits.", how many people do you think would be willing to do the work?
Fact is, in a free world (or capitalist world), the entrepreneur carries the risk and the factor time. He supplies the capital, he takes a bigger risk, but may also get a bigger reward for taking a bigger risk.
How do you know how many ipods you'll need, how many htc phones you'll need, how many nokia's you'll need? Without a free market and market prices, there's no economic calculation. Without economic calculation, you'll always have a shortage of certain goods and services and you'll always be wasting others. (Again, read Ludwig von Mises. In the 1920's he wrote a great paper about how the Soviet Union would fail because of the lack of economic calculation.)
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Product? Profits? Do you have even a redementary understanding of communism?
People are willing to work on things they are passionate about, medicine will not be left with a scarcity of researchers in a communist system. Jonas Salk who discovered the first polio vaccine is testement that profit is not everyones motivation.
How about labelling all of the medicines and drugs that are not produced because there is no profit motive?
There's no profit in the cure.
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4. Rest assured, I've read Marx (and was amazed by his lack of understanding of basic principals of economics, was disgusted by his moral arrogance and horrified when he sugested that certain groups of people should be eliminated for the greater good). I've read Chomsky (and have great respect for his research in the field of propaganda, and can't understand why he doesn't see the flaws in his anarchosyndicalist or mutualist thinking). I've read Smith (and i actually understood what he was saying when he mentioned the invisible hand. Smith defended markets (voluntary transactions) and opposed any kind of intervention).
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Adam Smith advocated intervention of the state to distribute public revenues to the poor.
http://www.chomsky.info/books/warfare02.htm
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5. If you want to understand how the economy really works, I recommend reading Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt, Jean-Baptiste Say, Frederic Bastiat,...
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Ahh the Austrian school of thought that the likes of Ron Paul aspire to. No free healthcare and social security will lead to a better society.
There's only one thing worse than the pyramid scheme we call society now and it's exactly what those people lobby for.